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Bandages That Can Turn Off Genes Encourages Wound Healing

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-in-one-healing dept.

MTorrice writes "Medical researchers think specially tailored RNA sequences could kill tumor cells or encourage wound healing by turning off genes in patients' cells. Now researchers have developed a nanocoating for bandages or other medical materials that could deliver these fragile gene-silencing RNAs right where they're needed. The team hopes to produce a bandage that shuts down genes standing in the way of healing in chronic wounds."

23 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Leg fell off by jamesh · · Score: 1

    I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

    1. Re:Leg fell off by ras · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

      No.

      But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 (click on Transcript):

      Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

    2. Re:Leg fell off by Vreejack · · Score: 1

      Matthew Hagee says that praying for healing in Jesus' name always cures everything. Except a case of the stupids.

      http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hagee-healing-jesus-name-works-every-time

      --
      "Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
    3. Re:Leg fell off by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

      Just glue the pieces together. Duh. It's not like you have to take them apart, you can just buy mor-- wait, wrong story, thought this tab was the Lego Xwing story.

    4. Re:Leg fell off by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

      No.

      But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 (click on Transcript):

      Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

      That's assuming the open wound doesn't become septic and you die from the infection, of course.

    5. Re:Leg fell off by jamesh · · Score: 1

      Matthew Hagee says that praying for healing in Jesus' name always cures everything. Except a case of the stupids.

      http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hagee-healing-jesus-name-works-every-time

      If prayer isn't curing stupidity then you obviously aren't praying hard enough, or praying to the wrong god(s).

    6. Re:Leg fell off by sjames · · Score: 1

      We have ways of preventing the infection.

    7. Re:Leg fell off by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      We have ways of preventing the infection.

      Yes, we do. First, one of the steps being that you wrap the finger in a bandage to keep bacteria away from it.

    8. Re:Leg fell off by sjames · · Score: 1

      Which is fine as long as the bone isn't trimmed and the wound closed with stitches as is normally done.

      Wec also have antibiotic ointments.

  2. Nanotech + engeneering by chaos_technique · · Score: 1
    What could possibly go wrong?

    Grey goo? I Am Legend (Will Smith edition)?

    --
    Singe capitulard mangeur de fromage
    1. Re:Nanotech + engeneering by chaos_technique · · Score: 1

      Twas actually a neologism splicing "engineering" and "gene". But it failed miserably, obviously.

      --
      Singe capitulard mangeur de fromage
  3. That would be a Godsend by hardburlyboogerman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For Type 1 diabetics,like myself.We are plagued by non-healing chronic open wounds that set up into gangrene.I lost my right foot to such a wound that started as a blister

    --
    Geek Hillbilly
    1. Re:That would be a Godsend by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      And the inability to appropriately use the space bar?

      What? YOU don't operate the spacebar with your right foot?

      Just because you're one of those morally-questionable left-footed people doesn't give you the right to be an insensitive clod!

    2. Re:That would be a Godsend by hardburlyboogerman · · Score: 1

      I got diabetes after getting sucker punched by a psych patient who I stopped from killing a nurse.Thanks to that Jackass,I have no pancreas to make insulin.If it isa any consolation,he got himself killed not a month later.At least I'm still alive.

      --
      Geek Hillbilly
  4. What's being 'silenced' here? by waterbear · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Obviously one crucial element in the safety/efficacy of anything like this is the identity of the gene/protein involved:-- what exactly is being 'silenced' here and taken away from the wound-healing process?

    Whatever, it's not mentioned in either the /. summary or either of the links referred to. So there's no real clue in the story, or in the links, about whether the application of this delivery technique is likely to be beneficial or the reverse.

    Informative reportage?

    1. Re:What's being 'silenced' here? by TrashGod · · Score: 5, Informative

      The idea is to down-regulate the production of protein(s) that induce cellular senescence in chronic wounds, for example. The short interfering RNA molecules are fragile. The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

    2. Re:What's being 'silenced' here? by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      The idea is to down-regulate the production of protein(s) that induce cellular senescence in chronic wounds, for example. The short interfering RNA molecules are fragile. The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

      An even better system would also deal with the fallout from flesh-eating bacteria!

    3. Re:What's being 'silenced' here? by waterbear · · Score: 1

      TrashGod wrote:
      > The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

      Yes, that looks like a fair assessment. But the story as posted and linked is still essentially incomplete, because it doesn't mention what useful thing they propose to deliver. There has to be some beneficial payload in order to make this delivery system any use at all, assuming of course that it works as a delivery system.

      The possible example of a 'payload' that you mention (not mentioned in the original article or links), for which you provided a separate link, is of something to down-regulate the production of protein(s) that induce cellular senescence in chronic wounds. This looks as if it could even be actually harmful if added to a wound, because the article you linked explains that the (natural) induction of this senescence restricts fibrosis in wound-healing. But, fibrosis "can be defined as the replacement of the normal structural elements of the tissue by distorted, non-functional and excessive accumulation of scar tissue" and gives rise to "many clinical problems" http://www.math.pitt.edu/~cbsg/Materials/Wound_Healing_Overview.pdf (such as keloids, hypertrophic scars, strictures and a whole list of problems). Thus, downregulating this senescence-inducing protein would be expected to increase the level of fibrosis in the healing wound, and to increase those problems: a harm, not a benefit.

      There are plenty of technical 'solutions' around that might be wonderful if there was actually a problem of the right shape for them to solve -- read: they are of no real use because there is no useful application for what they might do. As pure science this one may have interest, but as a useful product, there's no sign here of that.

  5. So... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    I thought chronic, poorly-healing wounds were due to poor blood flow. Diabetes wrecks small blood vessels like capillaries, or unconscious people getting bedsores at pressure points.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  6. This is spectacular. by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Foot ulcers in diabetics and bed sores in the elderly are really hard to deal with. Even when blood sugar is under control, these things take a long time to heal. You don't ever want one to happen to you.

    Slapping a specially treated bandage on a wound can *genetically* encourage healing? This is tantamount to finding out that you can cure scurvy with vitamin C to the affected people.

    --
    BMO

  7. Re:BE HEALED !! by nospam007 · · Score: 2

    " "Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all." --Voltaire

                        "The role of the doctor is to amuse the patient whilst nature takes its course".--Voltaire again"

    That works only for the malade imaginaire.

  8. Amazing by carrier+lost · · Score: 1

    I thought of this image a couple of days ago, finished it last night.

    This seems to happen every few weeks: I draw something that relates in some weird way to some current event I had no previous idea of.

    I've tagged these images as "psychic", for want of a better term.

    Anyway, I apologize for hijacking the conversation - couldn't help myself. As you were.

    --
    XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
  9. Re:This is a phenomenally ignorant respose. by conspirator23 · · Score: 2

    Congratulatons, you have managed to parlay your irrational fear of GMO into an irrational fear of entirely unrelated technologies. There's no gene splicing going on here. The RNA material they are embedding into the bandage are not genes, are not being spliced into living cells, and will not replicate. They are basically custom marching orders being sent to the existing genes, temporarily telling certain ones to shut the hell up for the duration of time that the RNA persists in the immediate area. The bandage approach is specifically because the RNA is so fragile as to not deliver effectively via traditional methods. So... you're wrong on so many levels, it boggles the mind.

    Welcome to Slashdot, BTW. You fit in just fine.